They are not Republicans.

Two skinheads have been arrested in Tennessee. Their plan seems a bit muddled to me. They were arrested in possession of some weapons, but were supposedly going to rob a gun store and then storm a school and kill African American children, followed by a road trip to kill Barack Obama. Gee, that sure seems amatuerish, doesn’t it? Wait, wait. . . from ajc.com:

In court records unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn., federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school in a murder spree that was to begin in Tennessee. Agents said the skinheads did not identify the school by name.

Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of ATF’s Nashville field office, said the two men planned to kill 88 people, including 14 African-Americans by beheading. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

The men also sought to go on a national killing spree after the Tennessee murders, with Obama as its final target, Cavanaugh told The Associated Press.

“They said that would be their last, final act — that they would attempt to kill Sen. Obama,” Cavanaugh said. “They didn’t believe they would be able to do it, but that they would get killed trying.”

Again, this doesn’t look like Obama was going to be in a whole lot of trouble from these whack jobs. The report details their plot as driving towards Obama really fast with guns blazing out the windows of the car and while wearing white tuxedos. Hey, they’re from Tennessee, so the tuxedo thing fits. The scary thing is that this seems clearly connected to the white supremacist movement, and it is clear that they had a chance of accomplishing their first objective, of killing 88 African American kids, and beheading 14 more. What do those odd numbers mean?

The numbers 14 and 88 are symbols in skinhead culture, referring to a 14-word phrase attributed to an imprisoned white supremacist: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” and to the eighth letter of the alphabet, H. Two “8″s or “H”s stand for “Heil Hitler.”

OK, a few things here. In an election year where we just might elect an African American to the highest office in the land, it is important to maintain a close watch on these homegrown terrorist groups. Read some of those email forwards recently? There’s definitely some racism rising because of this campaing, and while this story is not about Republicans, I’m not hesitant to say that any racism has the potential to lead on whack jobs like this.

Second, it appears these guys had enough evil intent concerning the school shooting, and enough possiblity of carrying it out, that they should be put away for a good long while. If I were the ATF and FBI, I’d visit every single white supremacist group these guys are even remotely affiliated with.

Third, these doofuses don’t know that nobody wears all-white tuxes anymore. It is so 70’s. They’d be spotted right away and arrested by the fashion police before they were able to rev their engines and do their pretend videogame violence thingie. I’m not sure the police should have added the part about their intentions to assassinate Obama, and that just might give people ideas or something.

Finally, my dear wife notes that these gentlemen are from Bells, TN and Helena-West Helena, AR. Those are small towns. There’s been a bit of a debate in this country about real American values and how they can be found in small towns. Indeed, it appears Sarah Palin stopped using that line, and apologized for it a couple days ago. I’m going to speculate here, but I’m guessing that the McCain campaing was briefed on this issue when these guys were arrested, just as they should have been. That just might be the source of Palin’s backtracking. Palin may have been stupid to pit small town “real” America against some “other,” where the “fake Americans lived, but by my read she used every opportunity to try to backpedal here before they brought this news into the open.